


Blue

by Singe_Addams



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Alien Character(s), Alien Planet, F/M, Gen, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Reptilian Aliens, Romance, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-05
Updated: 2013-06-05
Packaged: 2017-12-14 00:44:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/830736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Singe_Addams/pseuds/Singe_Addams
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Recovering in a very unusual hospital brings the Doctor and Tegan a bit closer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blue

**Author's Note:**

> Reptiles for eve11 and Doctor/Tegan for Gritkitty! Tegan's song is by Slim Newton.

Blue

 

 

When you get your ass kicked by several tons of xenophobic water lizard you feel it. Tegan was _really_ feeling it as she fought consciousness but she lost that battle, too, and opened her eyes. 

And groaned. 

And smiled.

Oh, she loved the Vrixis 'hospital.' This place...this fantastic place...almost made the pain worth it.

Bluuuuuuue.

Blue.

Blue blue blue...wonderful, lovely blue. Sparkling. Rippling. Blue that moved, that moved her, rocking her, calming her. Cooling blue. Blue everywhere, of course, she was floating in a grotto on a lilypad type 'med-bed,' and loving every moment. Healing in a Blue Grotto! Like the famous one in Italy that she was desperate to visit one day. Could the Italian one compare to this, though? This enormous cavern of stone cupped over the ocean, the intense blue of sunlight filtering up through seawater to cast rippling lights through the world? Tegan serenely floated the gentle waves while pondering it. No. Probably not. Tourists in Italy. Too many tourists. No peace like this. The circular current floated another patient's lily-pad closer to her. It was Nyssa's. Tegan raised a weak hand to wave but Nyssa was still asleep. Tegan sighed and wished, for the billionth time, that she could roll into the water and go swimming. Check on her friends. Pick a flower. Hunt for shells. See what the lilypads looked like from underneath.

Still, it was so soothing to just drift and listen to the occasional drip of condensation falling from the flowers that covered half the walls (oh, that lovely smell.) She could almost put the pain that woke her out of her mind. Almost. Her face twisted and her lips tightened but even her willpower couldn't ignore this. "Mmmph. Ow." Sensors in the lilypad decided she was creeping towards the danger zone and it began to glow an alert orange. She winced at the loud color clashing with her beloved, tranquil blue. 

Bang on cue the pad rose and fell as something large swam underneath it. A sleek head of shimmering green rose, dripping, out of the water on the end of a long, long neck and arched over her. "Good morning, Nessie," Tegan said, and grinned. 

"My name's not 'Nessie,' you rude monkey. It's not 'Cecil' either." Sharp teeth made snappy little chewing motions at Tegan's leg. 

"Good morning, Dr. Blurt!" Tegan quickly amended while the pad flashed briefly green in response to her laughter.

"That's better. Now shut up and let me do this." Dr. Blurt passed her long front-flippers over controls Tegan couldn't see on the side and underside of the pad. The pain shot into the red and she cried out. Dr. Blurt hissed with alarm and she twiddled the unseen controls another way. The extra discomfort disappeared but the general pain remained. "That worked on your friends. Leave it to you to be contrary," the doctor said. Tegan shrugged and took a deep, patient breath. Then Dr. Blurt tried something else. And something else again. Tegan felt hot, then cool, then itchy, then, finally, a bit better.

"Nnnngh," said Tegan. The doctor continued her adjustments and the orange glow of Tegan's pad began to soften to a muddy brown and then back to a neutral grey as the pain that woke her went slouching off towards Babylon. Good riddance. "That works. That works perfectly," Tegan slurred and wriggled her toes, sending ripples along her pad. "Thank you." Blurt flexed her neck with satisfaction. "Thank you, thank you, thaaaank yooou, thankyouthankyouthankyoooooou!" Tegan gently howled. Blurt sighed as Tegan began to sing. "Oooooohh, there was a red-back spider on the toilet seat last night! I didn't see him in the dark, but boy! I felt his bite! And now I'm 'ere in hospital, a sad and sorry pliiiight, and I curse that red-back spider on the toilet seat last niiiiiiiiight!" 

"Perhaps it's working a little too well," Dr. Blurt murmured. 

"EVERYTHING'S SO BLUE, DOCTOR BLURT!"

"Copious amounts of blue, yes," Dr. Blurt answered offhandedly as she concentrated on fine-tuning Tegan's treatment.

There was a gentle splash and "Everything all right?" a new voice asked. Blurt spared an annoyed glance at the humanoid newcomer. Tegan's heart popped in a shower of pink glitter and she giggled in welcome.

"All is well. Stay back, please," Blurt cautioned.

"Yes, of course," the man said and nodded respectfully while also swimming slowly closer. It was the sort of behavior that got them all clobbered in the first place but Tegan didn't care at the moment.

"Wheeee, it's the Doctor! _The_ Doctor! _My_ Doctor!" Tegan waved at him as if he were on the other side of the street instead of bobbing in the water a few feet away. The water darkened his blond, fine hair and she loved it like that. She loved him! She loved everybody.

"Good morning," the Doctor answered and waved back. "Reacting to the pain dampeners, are we?"

"YES!"

"May I?" he reached towards the lilypad and Dr. Blurt's head whipped around and down. Fierce yellow eyes stared directly into his own.

"No, you may not," she hissed. "We are still correcting the damage you did to Patient Adric's pad. We had to move him to a new one!" Being forced to move a patient due to bumbling was a cardinal sin on Vrixis and the Doctor sank in the water a few inches.

"Sorry, sorry. I think I have the technology figured out, though, and I know humans..."

"No, you do not." 

"And, no, you don't," Tegan agreed and the Doctor looked back and forth at the women in a woebegone way but there's no melting the cold, cold hearts of a plesiosaur concerned for her patient and a stubborn Australian.

He surrendered. "Oh, all right," he said and smiled again. 

Dr. Blurt made a growling noise of resignation and relaxed her neck. She became graceful and supple again. "I'm going to fetch Dr. Brilg, she has a more delicate touch than I do. You may come and hold Patient Tegan's flipper, Doctor, while I'm gone." One strong kick and the Doctor was leaning his elbows on Tegan's lily pad. "Keep her engaged, keep her calm, keep her from trying to swim," Blurt ordered and the Doctor nodded three times. " _The_ Doctor...bleargh." Blurt muttered as she sank beneath the water without a ripple. The lily pad rose and fell again as she swam for reinforcements.

"I'm calm," Tegan breathed. "I've never been so calm in my life. Hi!" His eyes were blue. Everything good in life was blue.

"Hullo, Tegan," the Doctor answered and almost laughed. "Calm are we?"

"Very."

"It makes for a pleasant change."

"Don't make me smack you." She aimed a whack at his head but missed, her hand flopped into the water with a tiny sploosh. She lifted it out and felt a shimmer of heat as the water evaporated instantly. "Aw, rabbits. You there! Come closer."

"No."

"Come to me, my darling!" She made seductive come-hithers at him.

"Nevah!" he declared and turned away with a theatrical flourish. She snickered and suddenly lunged for the blue, blue, blue water. He twisted around in time to take her by the shoulders. "Whoops, back. Back. Back, you fiend!"

"I wouldn't have gotten far," she laughed, allowing him to settle her. "This thing has a force field on it."

"And good thing, too," he murmured, patting her arm. "You realize you're the only patient that has one?"

"Birds gotta flyyy, humans gotta swiiim..." she sang. She suddenly took his hand in both of hers. "Got you! Hah!" 

"Brute." 

Tegan smiled and, well, hey, since she had him...she opened his hand and inspected it. Lovely long fingers. Strong palm. No worrying extra joints or ventricles or tentacles or...he had fingerprints! She wondered how many worlds had his fingerprints on record. Probably all of them. She liked his hand. She stroked the back of it, running her thumb over that strange, soft, cool skin and the fine hairs on the backs of his fingers. She turned it again and traced one of the lines on his palm. "This is your life line."

"Is it?" 

"Yes. See? See how long it is? It goes all the way across your palm and down to your wrist," she lightly traced a line with her forefinger, "Then up to your elbow and past your arm," she pointed over his shoulder, "Until it ends somewhere in Outer Mongolia. You're going to be around a long, long time, Doc."

"Don't remind me," he huffed as if the prospect didn't thrill him. But he smiled again, his genuinely charming smile, and, happily smiling back, she very gently smoothed a wet strand of his hair behind his ear. He blinked at her. With her fingertips Tegan slowly chased a droplet of moisture down to his mouth, his full lips, and she felt his breath on her skin.

Then "Ah, yes," he said as if she'd asked something. Maybe she had? She didn't remember. He took her hand off his face and brought it down to the pad, trapping it under both of his. He politely smiled again, his mouth sealed shut.

Ah, yes. Well. Whatever she'd asked the answer was clearly _No._ Infuriating man. _Stay Back_ means _Come Closer_ and _Yes_ means _No._ "This ain't over, you," she warned.

"Promises, promises," he answered. And what did that mean?! If he thought for one second that she, at least, didn't say what she meant...!

She began to retort something, anything, but the sea rose and dipped as Dr. Blurt came back with Dr. Brilg and Tegan lost the thread. The Doctor let her go to swim out of the way. Dr. Brilg made the Vrixiilk equivalent of _tsk tsk_ (a sort of _blurgledurgle_ ) before she touched a single sensor and Tegan's world calmed and, unexpectedly, began to go dark. She could just hear the medics still...

"If I had wanted her to lose consciousness I would have let the Doctor have her," Dr. Blurt snapped.

"Shut up and let me do this," Brilg countered 

Tegan smiled and let the blue, blue, blue slip away. It would be waiting for her when she got back.

The Doctor, too.

 

 

End


End file.
